


Catch Midnight

by tackytiger



Series: The Poem You Make of Me [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Idiots in Love, In Love, Light Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Moral Ambiguity, Mutual Pining, Pining, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Wardrobe Voyeurism, oblivious idiots, so much pining, wanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 18:34:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: They're the Auror/ Unspeakable team of Robards' nightmares. They're madly in love with each other, but also blindly oblivious to the fact. They can feel each other's magic. They jump out of windows. And Malfoy does a lot of watching Harry wank.This isn't a case fic. There isn't even really a plot. There's just loads and loads of feelings—it's brimming with them, seething with them. And if you're brimming with Drarry feelings, then you just might like this one. I hope you do.





	Catch Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to my first ever Drarry fic, Take You Made. A few people who read that fic mentioned that they wanted to hear more about the chaotic good of the Malfoy/ Potter partnership. How did Harry get rum on his good robes? Did they really climb out a window? What happened in (*ominous music*) the crypt? And what happened after Malfoy came out of the wardrobe and interrupted Harry mid-wank (or quite close to the end of the wank, actually)?
> 
> This fic attempts to answer those questions.
> 
> You don't need to have read Take You Made to read this, but I haven't really filled in much backstory here so if you do want more info about their relationship then you can probably find it in that fic. It's  
HERE
> 
> A huge thank you to dualwieldteacup, onereader, and quicksilvermaid for being the dream team of friends/ betas/ encouragers/ enablers...
> 
> Title taken from Recreation by Audre Lorde, which is unfairly good and beautiful.

Malfoy is leaning against the elaborately carved frame of the open window, and he looks like something that should have wings: like something fallen from the sky; like some sort of sleek bird still humming with the sudden quivering pause of arrested flight, maybe, or an angel. Not the soft-cheeked cherubs of greetings cards, but the warriors of heaven that Harry had heard about in Sunday School.

He can't help but think that none of those blazing beings, light made flesh, strung tight with heavenly power, could hold a candle to Malfoy with his drunken, sideways lean, or the dangerous glimmer of his smile as he surveys the drop from the window to the Manor lawns below, or the lunar gleam of his inner wrist where the robes fall away as he raises his hand to drink yet more. Harry wants to put his mouth there, where the jut of Malfoy's tendon kisses the bracelet lines ringing the base of his palm; no sacred Divination would be needed to count the years those lines promised—just the questing trail of Harry's tongue at the restless flutter of Malfoy's pulsepoint would tell him everything he needed to know.

He almost moves to do it—almost reaches out to where Malfoy is laughing at him from further along the window ledge, almost slides his hand up the pristine lines of Malfoy's dress trousers to untuck, undo, unmake. It would be so easy, he thinks. Take the glass away—neat rum, it smells like—kiss the smoke and molasses of it off the insolent curl of Malfoy's lip, lever him off the window ledge and back into the second-best guest bathroom and just lay him out on the carpet there and taste every bit of skin he could uncover. Malfoy would let him, he thinks, and then he has to swallow hard at the thought of Malfoy granting him such permission. He's half-hard from the idea of it, cock nudging against the velvet of his suit trousers at just the thought of a panted yes from Malfoy's mouth.

He scoots further along the window frame until his knees knock against Malfoy's where he straddles the sill. They're so close now, that it would be very easy to move closer still. Harry shrugs his shoulders in the jacket of his ostentatious velvet suit (red for danger, red for the pulse of fresh blood, red for the enticing wetness of the inside of a mouth), and watches Malfoy's eyes follow the languorous movement with a helpless flicker of interest.

Their little pocket of night grows denser suddenly, heavy with the nearness of warm skin and the weight of breath held in anticipation. But the merry chime of a bell, the first clang of the midnight peals, breaks into their silence, and the spill of noise and merriment jolts them back to themselves for the last few seconds of the old year.

Malfoy laughs again, and then leans out impossibly far to peer groundwards. Moonlight lacquers the finely-drawn line of his profile, and he says decisively, "I think we can make it." Glee suits him, Harry thinks, before he shifts and slings his good robes back on, and reluctantly sighs, "At least cast a _Sobrietus_ before we chance it?"

The familiar wash of Malfoy's magic breaks over Harry, and that's as good as a touch in its own way. Harry breathes it in: the brackish tang of seasalty air; burnt sugar, ready to be cracked with a spoon; the hot blast from an opened oven door, when something good is cooking inside. It feels exciting, but always safe—crisp and smoky and expectant, like the pause in the air after a Christmas cracker has been pulled.

Malfoy rolls his eyes, but it's fond, and anyway Harry has seen Malfoy staring at his own skin many times as if looking for the ripple of _feeling_ that Harry's magic raises in him.

Then the spell zips and sizzles through Harry's bloodstream, leaving him bent over and gasping as the alcohol burns off. _Sobrietus_ hurts like a bastard, and Harry prefers to use it only in extreme circumstances. This counts. It's better this way, he knows. Far less chance of him moving those last few inches to meet the heat of Malfoy's mouth, not to mention far less likely to break anything jumping out of a second floor window of Malfoy Manor in order to avoid running the gauntlet of Lucius Malfoy and his party guests.

Beside Harry, Malfoy is spluttering and gasping as the charm strips him clean too, and when he straightens his eyes are clear. He swings his other leg over the sill, Harry following like he always does.

"On my count, Potter? One… two… three!"

They jump together, of course, and the ground rushes up to them faster than they could have imagined, and it's all sensation—the breath-stealing whip of the wind, the snap and crack of Malfoy's robes, and then the welcoming bloom of Malfoy's Cushioning Charms giving Harry harbour, as always. They lie together on the grass, too stunned to laugh, and Harry thinks that at least he finally knows what it's like to be safe.

* * *

They hadn't always had to keep their distance from each other. Harry remembers loads of nights on the back of Malfoy's broom, his chest plastered to Malfoy’s back, half-frozen fingers buried in the pocket of Malfoy's hoodie, the stars winking at them as Malfoy spun them into yet another reckless dive. He remembers the cool slide of Malfoy’s palm over the sweat-slick skin of Harry's forehead after yet another nightmare. 

He remembers the shift and curl of the muscles of Malfoy's back under his own grasp as they practiced their duelling, Malfoy going in hard and dirty, and then wriggling like an eel out of Harry's hands by administering a sharp, unrestrained elbow to Harry's solar plexus. Malfoy was the only trainee who'd ever try to take Harry down properly. More than once, they'd dropped wands and ended up grappling on the floor—Malfoy was infuriating heat and wiry strength and Harry's fingers itched to best him. Afterwards, Malfoy would spell away the bruises from Harry's knuckles, and Harry would smooth salve over the mat burn on Malfoy's lower back. He knew the feel of Malfoy's skin as well as he knew his own, back then.

The trouble was, the touches became more tender (more telling, just… _more_), as time went on. Harry wasn't naturally affectionate, but when it came to Malfoy, he felt as though every one of his inconvenient bloody feelings was branded into his very fingertips. Every delicate wingbeat of skin on skin seemed unbearably intimate, every brush of knuckles or nudge of shoulders felt like a declaration.

And then came the crypt.

Malfoy had been deep undercover at the time, feverishly winding up the unspooled threads of his family’s connections in the most comprehensive DMLE attempt to track down the last of the Death Eaters. Harry had barely seen him for five months, save for a few late-night visits in which Malfoy looked as white and drawn as he had in Sixth Year, and which mostly consisted of them sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in Grimmauld, Harry absorbing Malfoy’s shudders as they shared a bottle of Firewhisky in silence. 

Malfoy’s intel, painstakingly gathered and impeccably maintained, had broken the case and provided indisputable proof of a Neo-Death Eater cell based in the country house of a minor Yaxley. Quillon Yaxley had submitted quietly during the Auror raid, and was being interrogated by Ron in the parlour while the clean-up team worked on transporting the prisoners and bagging the bodies. Malfoy had last been placed at the Yaxley manor—and his wand was there, laid neatly on the bedside cabinet in the room he had been using—but he had gone off-grid just as the raid got underway. Harry knew was that Malfoy was still alive, thanks to the _Scisanimax_ charm linking him to his team leader, but all that proved was that his heart was still beating. 

Harry was prowling the Manor, helpless with the need to somehow lay hands on Malfoy, to feel him safe and strong, to just get him back, for fuck’s sake. Yaxley was unruffled and holding his nerve, sipping a glass of water around the modified Body-Bind, and insisting that Malfoy had been perfectly fine the last time he had seen him. 

Fruitless rounds of the house had no effect but to make Harry feel as though he was going to crawl out of his skin, so he decided to check the grounds. It was as he neared the chapel that he felt it - the slightest shiver of recognition, that exhilarating pinprick of anticipation that accompanied Malfoy’s magic. He could _feel_ it coursing through the very stones at his feet, feeble and weakened as it may have been by what turned out to be blood loss and the cold weight of the cryptstone. Malfoy may have been entombed, but he was _there_, and alive, and he was casting and recasting for Harry to pick up the trail. 

From there, it was a matter of just following the call of Malfoy’s spellwork, and locating the crypt (and really, Yaxley, burying him alive? So unimaginative). Ron told Harry afterwards that his blasting curse took off half the chapel roof as well cracking the crypt open like an egg. By the time the rest of his team arrived (summoned by the ground shaking, no doubt) Harry was already carrying Malfoy out of the rubble. Malfoy was milk-white and semi-conscious, but he was alive, and the wispy tendrils of the wandless Lumos still trailing from his bloodied fingertips proved just how hard he had fought to keep himself so.

The Mediwizards had to threaten wands to get Harry to hand Malfoy over to them, and it was only the urgent hum of the diagnostic and core-stabilising spells that convinced him to peel his fingers off where they were clenched around Malfoy’s trembling forearm. He wasn’t quite sure when Malfoy had become essential, but looking at the dear, familiar face (uncharacteristically relaxed in Stasis), Harry realized that somewhere along the line he had fallen helplessly, reluctantly, and irrevocably in love with Malfoy.

As soon as the emergency Portkey had transferred Malfoy to St Mungo’s, Harry went slowly back into Yaxley Manor, the knowledge of these new and terrifying feelings lodged like a cursed blade in his throat. He couldn’t have spoken an incantation aloud even if he’d tried, but as it turned out, he didn’t need magic to show Quillon Yaxley exactly what happened to anyone who tried to hurt Malfoy. By the time Ron got back to the house and managed to force himself between them, Yaxley was a slobbering mess of blood and tears, and Harry had fractures in the fifth metacarpals of both hands.

He apparated to St Mungo’s with Yaxley’s blood drying tacky on his fists, and when he arrived at Malfoy’s bedside, Malfoy looked him up and down with that cool grey gaze, and said nothing but, “It took you long enough, Potter.” 

When Harry woke up in a chair the next morning, stiff and cold in the thin grey pre-dawn light of the hospital room, his hand and Malfoy’s were glued bloodily together where they had clutched at each other's damaged fingers in their sleep. 

That was the last time they had allowed themselves to touch each other. 

Until now. 

* * *

He wouldn't normally have a wank in the afternoon, but Harry's feeling restless, skittish, and the remnants of Malfoy's magic that shiver around Harry when he takes their room wards down have him shuddering. It's always like this for him, these days—Malfoy's magic is a rush of sensation, a tangible ripple of pure sensuous pleasure. It's like he's drowning in the wash and swell of it, buffeted by the crest and crash of desire. Harry is unmoored. He hasn't fucked anyone in months—how can he, when the pinprick crawl of wanting Malfoy is scribbled all over his skin? And it's not just about the bloody sex, either. 

He sighs, inhales deeper, lets himself feel Malfoy's residual magic in a way he can only do in private, for fear of letting all those most private, deeply-held feelings show. 

Because the feel of Malfoy's magic! It's an open window, with no bars to trap anyone, letting in nothing but fresh green smells and the whisper of rain. It's what Harry thinks it must feel like to wake and roll into the warm, fragrant space left when the person he loves gets out of bed. It's the sensation of a palm-warmed wand after Harry's won the duel; the silken slide of wood against his skin, with the faintest crackle of a well-cast Stupefy still lingering. It feels like everything Harry has never allowed himself to hope for.

And maybe it's wrong to do this, he thinks as he sinks onto Malfoy's bed. It feels like a breach of trust, burrowing into Malfoy's private space, but the part of Harry that's he's always suppressing, the part that's maddened with lust and wants to taste Malfoy from the inside out, has him turning his head onto Malfoy's pillow with a groan.

He's hard already, blindingly hard, the muscles of his stomach tensing at the friction of fabric on skin. There, on Malfoy's bed, in underwear the exact green of Malfoy's school tie, surrounded by the intoxicating smell and feel of Malfoy's magic, he thrusts against the ungentle pressure of his own palm. 

He thinks, as he always does when he touches himself like this, about the one time Malfoy had watched him do it. There's a clarity to his memory of that night that seems disproportionate considering how drunk they had both been, and the image of Malfoy lying curled on his side in this very bed, eyes on Harry, is disquietingly, shockingly arousing. 

He slicks his hand up, slides it inside his waistband, gasps at the sudden wet heat of it. He remembers how sharp Malfoy's eyes had been in the pool of Harry's Lumos. He should have looked gentle, sweet, curled like a cat in his bed, with a flush of pink across his cheekbones. Instead, he had seemed almost feral, body thrumming with tension.

The heightened glitter of those smoky eyes had held the predatory impulse of something wild and prowling, something flickering in the corner of your eye, something holding itself back from the light. Harry had wanted to step away into the intoxicating darkness. The part of him that had been drunk, and belligerent, and so fucking tired of pretending that he didn’t want Malfoy, had uncoiled in him, dark and insidious, and whispered to him, why not? Why not take this now, for once? If you can’t have him in the way you want him, why not take what you can get?

It would have been a relief, to give into the urge. 

And he almost had, once he had come fast and unrelenting over his own fist, and had looked over to see Malfoy still watching. It was only the bloom of panic he had felt in Malfoy's magic, the thin shaky whisper of worry, that had sent him to the bathroom instead of straight into Malfoy's bed.

But now Malfoy isn't here, and Harry is thrusting smooth and swift into his own fist, he allows himself to imagine what _might_ have happened if he'd been brave enough to touch, taste, feel Malfoy that night. 

He pictures it, as the groan of longing rises unbidden from deep in his chest: pictures pulling back the covers; pressing against the straining jut of Malfoy's erection; tasting the tart pulse of his precome. He imagines the heavy slide of Malfoy's cock over his tongue, the tightening pressure of Malfoy's hands in his hair, the helpless rut of those elegant hips, the clarity of Malfoy's intense focus (so familiar from working cases) as he chases his own pleasure. And then, what would happen after, after he gets Malfoy to come apart?

He imagines their bodies lined up, slack and well-used, his hand in Malfoy's hair, the inviting curve of Malfoy's lower lip under his tongue, and he whispers his name like a prayer. "Malfoy." Just the thought of getting to say it like that—into the enticing heat of Malfoy's mouth, into the sweat-laced satin of his hair, into the velvet of the skin that stretches taut over Malfoy's collarbone—has his hand speeding up, his hips jerking, but then the wardrobe door swings open, which is weird, and Malfoy comes out—the real Malfoy, not the Malfoy of his fantasies. He's wearing far too many clothes, for one thing, and his face is shuttered, eyes cold. And behind the anger, there's hurt, and that's what disturbs Harry the most, and he tries to pull himself back, to use the shock and humiliation to ground himself again, but it's too late. Malfoy is there, and his mouth is a reddened, bitten-looking lure, and he looks half-mad with rage and… something else, something close to want, Harry thinks.

And it's too much, the sight of him and the sharp tang of arousal in the air, and Harry can't stop himself from coming, coming, helplessly coming all over his outrageously expensive green silk boxer shorts. The relief of it almost outstrips the humiliation, for a second, but when Harry looks up and sees Malfoy staring, the feeling of being exposed to him so completely sends another helpless wave of lust through Harry and his cock pulses once more, shamefully, under Malfoy's incredulous gaze. 

And then it's just him, with his spreading, ignominious wet patch, panting and loose-limbed in the sex-fervid air of the bedroom, and Malfoy.

Harry feels like there isn't much to say, but he tries anyway, babbling into the silence, desperate to make it all ok again. And somehow, magically, it seems to be working. Because Malfoy's face is changing, the expression lifting into something so very _him_—gleeful, and quixotic, and unbearably fond. 

Harry almost doesn't believe it when Malfoy comes towards him, but Malfoy's hand on his face is so tender and _decisive_ that Harry has to breathe in sharply against the thud of his heart into his throat. And there doesn't seem to be any doubting that this seems to be real for Malfoy too—his smile is seraphic, but there's an edge of hunger to it that looks like it runs deeper than Harry could have ever imagined. 

Harry nods, whispers a yes, then clears his throat to say it louder, more definitely. Malfoy's smile is contagious, he thinks, and they're still smiling at each other when Malfoy drops to his knees and places that impertinent, alluring mouth over Harry's wet patch and begins to suck. It hasn't even had a chance to grow cool yet, Harry thinks hysterically, but Malfoy's mouth is searing, and Harry can feel himself thickening again at the coy lap of Malfoy's tongue. 

The intimacy of it is almost too much, and Harry slides his hands into Malfoy's underarms and yanks him upwards. He comes easily, sprawling atop Harry until he's laughing into his mouth between greedy, possessive kisses. And how fast it turns into something desperate between them, Malfoy obscenely hard, straining at the lacings of his trousers, robe rucked up into his armpits to faciliate Harry's unrepentant pursuit of more skin. Harry can feel him vibrating with desire, can almost hear the hum of it, and the thought makes him feel lightheaded, until he realises that it's Malfoy's wand he can feel, still holstered at Malfoy's thigh and reverberating with the emergency signal. His own wand, lying on the bedside cabinet, has nearly juddered off the edge. Work is calling. They're being summoned. 

Harry's only consolation is that Malfoy looks as frustrated as Harry feels, as he springs to his feet and slams out the response charm. He looks utterly debauched, mouth wet and vivid, a trail of stubble burn running down from the ridge of his jawline and disappearing into the collar of his robes. He sighs, swears under his breath as he tries to tighten the laces of his trousers over the swell of his cock. Harry looks around helplessly for clean underwear, then shrugs and peels his off before pulling on his trousers. When he grabs a t-shirt and holds out his hand for a Side-Along, Malfoy's smile is full of wicked promise. 

"Later, Potter," he hisses fervently, like he's swearing a vow, and then his magic pulls them out into the ether.

* * *

It should be a tricky assignment, going in blind to a hostage situation involving some pretty desperate, vicious illegal Potions brewers, in a lab filled with unstable, poorly-brewed concoctions. It's not. Harry feels a sort of beatific communion with Malfoy, and he gives himself up to it. It's like they're casting from one core, Malfoy's magic both kindling and anchor. Their colleagues seem almost bemused by the effortless sing of their spells. It's over too soon, the criminals rounded up, the tearful hostages in safe hands, the potions secured. Harry and Malfoy are still laughing and breathless as they assign tasks to the junior Aurors—transportation, report-writing, statement-taking.

"And Auror Potter and I will secure the crime scene," Malfoy finishes smoothly, and even the most green recruit raises an eyebrow at that. Malfoy and Potter never take on the clean-up jobs—it's a perk of saving the world.

As soon as the last crack of Apparition dies away, and the lab is empty, Malfoy casts. He sweeps his wand arm in a wild arc, Anti-Apparition wards and Privacy charms and Stasis spells slamming into place at his command. Harry can feel the room reverberating with the force of it. Then Malfoy turns to Harry, and drops his wand, and then they're both moving in a glorious frenzy of uncomplicated need and yearning. Malfoy's mouth, already so deliciously familiar, moves unrelenting and filthy on Harry's, and the feel of his solid heat under Harry's questing hands is blissful in its _rightness_.

"No more waiting, Potter," Malfoy murmurs, the words trapped and swallowed by Harry's hungry gasps. 

It doesn't seem to matter that they're not in a bed, that they're at a crime scene, that they're on the floor of a filthy potions lab with only Harry's wobbly Cushioning charms between them and the concrete. Rules haven't ever really applied to them before, after all. 

And it's not all urgent heat, either—Harry gets to kiss the gleeful edges of Malfoy’s unguarded smile, and when Malfoy rocks himself into Harry, he takes it so slowly that Harry feels like he might just die right there from the infernal opening press of Malfoy's cock filling him. But then Malfoy rolls his hips and Harry clenches down, and all of a sudden it _is_ imperative that they move, fast and instinctive and so, so good. Coming into Malfoy's fist while Malfoy's spunk trickles from him is the closest Harry's ever been to bliss, he thinks.

Afterwards, hand-in-hand and still beaming at each other, they prepare to Apparate back to the Ministry.

"They're all going to know, of course," Malfoy says uncertainly. "They might make us partner up with other people. This is probably against every rule in the Code of Conduct."

Harry shrugs. "Then we go. If they want us, they can have us together. And if they don't let us be together, then they don't get us."

Malfoy snorts. "I suppose it's as easy as that when you're Harry Potter."

Harry thinks about that, and about how Malfoy is just so _present_ all the fucking time, so _there_ and _alive_ and always making everyone else seem a little bit stolid and dull in comparison. He thinks about how Malfoy has an uncanny sense of exactly the right time to provide Harry with a perfect cup of tea. How Harry leaves neat piles of clean laundry on Malfoy’s bed, and if they sometimes end up wearing each other’s socks then neither of them ever seem to mind. Night wakings are never too lonely. Weekly meal plans are worked out together. They know each other’s secrets. Harry feels cared for, every day. He can't really imagine feeling more part of a team than he does with Malfoy, and he's not going without that, ever.

He shrugs again, and drops a mothwing brush of a kiss on Malfoy's temple. 

"It really is that simple," he replies.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @tackytigerfic on Tumblr so please come and say hi!


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